George Mason's legacy lives on with NCAA run

He was a man so dedicated to freedom and justice, he walked out and refused to sign the United States Constitution because initially it did not include the Bill of Rights.

He believed that all people should have an opportunity to make something of themselves in the bold New World.

Even though he owned slaves, later in life he spoke out for the "discontinuance of this disgraceful trade" and firmly planted the seeds that eventually would break the chains and destroy slavery.

"We came equals into this world, and equals shall we go out of it," he wrote in a letter to his friend and neighbor George Washington. "All men are by nature born equally free and independent."

"Our basketball team represents what George Mason believed," says Robert Hawkes, a history professor for 37 years at George Mason University who is writing a book on the school's namesake. "He was the inventor of what I like to call the American creed. He believed everybody, if given a fair chance, could excel."

In other words, George Mason, the man, was not a fan of Billy Packer and other BCS bootlicking bourgeois who believe the great unwashed (see mid-majors) should be systematically locked out, leaving the NCAA Tournament as an exclusive playpen for the pampered and privileged.

Even though he was born two centuries before Roy Kramer, Mason once warned about the corruption of power and money: "When the same man, or set of men, holds the sword and the purse, there is an end of liberty."

And this is why George Mason's basketball team is the most significant and seminal sports story of our time. Because this undersized team from this overlooked school with the coach no one knows from the conference no one has heard of has shown us that anything is possible and everything is attainable.

We always hear that about sports, but we never really see it. Not in the NFL, not in the NBA, certainly not in college football. Even the NCAA Tournament, despite its magnetism and melodrama, never has allowed a true Cinderella to crash her chariot through the gilded gates of the Final Four.

Think about it: When's the last time the little guy actually accomplished something really big in sports? When's the last time a team came from nowhere and became an inspiration for fans everywhere?

There are no underdogs anymore, not really. There's nobody America can cheer for without reservation. In pro sports, can you really pull purely and passionately for the team with the $10 million quarterback or the $15 million shortstop? In college football, who ya rootin' for -- the school with the $50 million athletic budget or the school with the $60 million athletic budget?

George Mason is our "Miracle On Wood" -- a modern-day version of the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team. If you're not rooting for Mason on Saturday when the Patriots play Florida in a Final Four semifinal, you are either a Gator or a hater.

Rooting for Florida to beat George Mason is like slamming the door in the face of the Girl Scout selling cookies. It's like rooting for Ivan Drago to knock out Rocky Balboa. It's like hoping Barry Bonds hits a home run off the Maitland Little Leaguers.

"If we weren't playing them," Florida center Al Horford confesses, "I'd be up in the stands yelling 'Go George Mason!' There's no question they are America's team."

Actually, they are the American dream. This commuter school with an enrollment of nearly 30,000 students is the most culturally diverse university in the country, with students from an estimated 140 nations around the world. This school mirrors this country. Different colors. Different beliefs. Different goals. But all on the same team.

My country 'tis of thee,

Our guys can drain the "3"!

Believe it or not, the university has a small satellite campus in the United Arab Emirates where students now are learning English by reading about Mason's miracle march to the Final Four. Coach Jim Larranaga, who has compared his giant-killing team to the only element that can destroy Superman, couldn't help but wonder about the UAE students. "You think when they're reading, they're going to ask someone what Kryptonite is?" he says and laughs. "Can you explain what Kryptonite is in Arabic?"

If you don't believe we can all get along, you should have witnessed the pep rally before the team left for Indianapolis on Wednesday. It was a manic mosaic of multiplicity. There were Muslim co-eds wearing hijabs on their heads cheering beside Christian frat boys wearing basketballs on their heads. There were African-Americans and Asian-Americans and Latin Americans and Native Americans swaying side-by-side, all holding up signs that said, "Mason Madness!"

It didn't matter if you were black or white, as long as you were wearing Green and Gold. There was even a student from Saudi Arabia decked out in a lime-green turban.

"I don't know if that violates his religion, but I guess he's willing to take the risk," school President Alan Merten said with a smile. "It's amazing to see how one team is capable of bringing all colors and creeds together."

George Mason, the team, would have made George Mason, the man, very happy. Robert Hawkes, the old history professor, tells us that George Mason was the forsaken, forgotten forefather. He tells us that when Mason refused to sign the Constitution, George Washington became furious and ended his lifelong friendship with Mason.

"Sadly," Hawkes says, "after that, George Mason was relegated to the dust bowl of history."

Not anymore.

There's a bigger-than-life statue of ol' George in his powdered wig, proudly standing in the center of campus today. Earlier this week, students outfitted the statue in a green T-shirt that says, "Go Kryptonite Kidz."

There is a cape around the statue's neck and a sign attached to his left shoe: "The slipper fits."

From the dust bowl to the punchbowl.

From forsaken forefather to Final Fourfather.

George Mason conceived it. He believed it.

That all men are created equal and entitled to certain unalienable rights: